How Does TikTok Know My Location? Can I Change It?

You’ve probably noticed that some TikTok videos you see in your feed reflect topics of interest in the area or country where you live. You’ve undoubtedly seen many TikTok posts that include the user’s specific location, identified by city or even by a restaurant or concert they’re attending.

How does that happen? How does TikTok know where you are? And is there a way to change it?

TikTok’s Location Services

TikTok doesn’t automatically track your exact location the way that GPS apps do. When you first sign up for a TikTok account, the system determines your approximate location based on your zip or postal code, your IP address, and information from your phone’s SIM card. It may also add data from other apps like Facebook that you’ve connected to TikTok.

The app generally uses that approximate location from that point forward, until and unless you enable the social media platform’s “Location Services.”

Importantly, that option isn’t available in some parts of the world. Notably, users in the United States and Australia aren’t allowed access to Location Services (because of privacy concerns), and it’s also not available to users under the age of 18.

All others can find the function by going to their TikTok profile, tapping on the Menu icon (three horizontal lines) at the top right of the screen, and choosing “Settings and privacy” from the popup. Clicking on “Privacy” brings up the “Location Services” option.

To let TikTok show your location more precisely via GPS and other methods (accuracy depends on your country or region), turn the toggle switch “on.” To prevent the use of Location Services, make sure it’s turned “off,” and the app will continue using the information it collected at startup.

What If I Want to Use a Different Location?

If you’ve moved or are on vacation but you don’t turn on Location Services, you could be out of luck.

However, if you want the app to think that you’re somewhere else so you can see content specific to that area more frequently (for example, your home country), there’s one option that might work.

If you sign on to TikTok via a VPN (virtual private network) service that lets you choose your “location,” TikTok may recognize the nation you’re connecting through and change your location. The system has gotten pretty good at recognizing VPN use, though, so this hack may not work for some VPN providers.

Locations Shown on Your TikTok Posts

All users have the option to add a location to their posts before uploading.

If you look on the final screen that appears during the content creation process (the one where you add the post’s description), you’ll see an option called “Location.” You can choose suggested gag ones like “Space” or “I Don’t Care,” or tap the link to choose a legitimate location.

If you’ve enabled Location Services, you should see a long list of possibilities in the area near you. If you haven’t (or can’t), you can type the general location you want to use in the search bar, and then choose a more specific one from the search results that appear.

None of the alternatives are perfect if you don’t want to use Location Services, but that’s just the price you’ll have to pay for protecting your privacy.